absent characters

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1. what books or stories can you think of that importantly feature absent characters?

2. what books or stories can you think of that play variations on this theme by the way they are structured or styled or etc? (as a 'variation' i am including books where a character is not actually absent but almost is.)

nb: i'm not counting characters who are dead (unless somehow no one in the world of the story knows it, i guess, and they find out: but maybe there are lots of books like that), or who appear as ghosts, or something like that.

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 5 October 2006 02:36 (nineteen years ago)

my question was prompted by recalling robert coover's 'john's wife', which i am offering as an answer to #2. i never read the whole thing but many of its features (john's wife never being referred to by name, our finding out about her only through what other people think or fantasize about her) make her actually absent, prior to her appearing later on (these are the scenes i haven't read so i'm not sure if they're consistent with her never really appearing or not), and some of those later scenes even play on her evanescence (e.g. her disappearing as soon as she lifts her dress over her head).

'waiting for godot' would apparently serve as an example of #1. maybe the old testament would too.

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 5 October 2006 02:41 (nineteen years ago)

'the invisible man' gives an example to #2 in the sense that while the character is never absent to the readers, his presence is significantly changed for the other characters.

characters absent to the reader seem more interesting to me, though it would be interesting to see how they connect up with the range of ways characters could be absent to other characters.

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 5 October 2006 02:44 (nineteen years ago)

epistolary novels in which only one half of the exchange is ever shown?

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 5 October 2006 02:46 (nineteen years ago)

Didn't Dear Mr. Henshaw only show one side of the corespondence?

Uh, not to give it away, but Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

For #2, A Void, perhaps.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 5 October 2006 04:27 (nineteen years ago)

Dear oh dear. The one that immediately comes to mind is Jane Eyre, in which Bertha Mason, even though absent for the majority of the novel, prevents Rochester and Jane from finding happiness together.

― SRH (Skrik), Thursday, 5 October 2006 05:39 (nineteen years ago)

holden caulfield's girlfriend jane gallagher and his brother d.b. in catcher in the rye; seymour glass in any story except "bananafish."

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 5 October 2006 06:06 (nineteen years ago)

ooh good i shoulda thought of those jd!

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 5 October 2006 06:49 (nineteen years ago)

god is onstage pretty often in the old testament josh

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 5 October 2006 10:06 (nineteen years ago)

How about Rebecca in Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

― andyjack (andyjack), Thursday, 5 October 2006 15:15 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah but not Jesus, Tom.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 5 October 2006 15:22 (nineteen years ago)

Godot?

― llj (llj), Thursday, 5 October 2006 15:23 (nineteen years ago)

Tennyson's Queen Mary does something like #2 with Jane Grey, it's kind of amazing and unexpected? She's onstage in five scenes (iirc) and referred to a bunch of times in others but has only one line, which is when they're about to chop off her head and she gropes around in front of her saying "where is it? where is it?", I think it would convince me more as an example if it came from someone with more of a rep for stunts like this.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 5 October 2006 17:08 (nineteen years ago)

"What 100 people, real and fake, believe about Delores"

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 5 October 2006 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

The Basic Eight!

― Laurel (Laurel), Thursday, 5 October 2006 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

Yes! And the other book, that it is like, I suppose.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 5 October 2006 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

Harvey: A Comedy in Three Acts, Mary Chase. Not a novel, but definitely a "story".

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 5 October 2006 19:18 (nineteen years ago)

sorry, i would have said 'narrative', but i was trying to be all hip and colloquial.

tom, i was referring to the messiah! who the jews do not think shows up later in the new testament anyway (so if the old testament reads as an 'absent character' book for christians, the character only shows up for christians. for jews jesus is just some punk that arrives late in the book and fucks everything up!).

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 5 October 2006 19:59 (nineteen years ago)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 5 October 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

i believe i was once on their mailing list.

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 5 October 2006 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

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